Post Date: November 19, 2022

Physician Medicare pay is about to fall without congressional help, so the Texas Medical Association created several ways for doctors to speak out via its Medicare Pay Cuts Toolkit. 

Physicians face the latest Medicare payment cut of 8.5% on Jan. 1.

TMA’s toolkit features an action alert for physicians to urge Congress to act now to thwart the cut, as well as sample letters to the editor doctors can send to local newspapers. The toolkit may be accessed on the TMA home page, the main Advocacy page and the Grassroots Action Center page.

This new round of cuts stems from a 4.5% reduction to the Medicare conversion factor plus a 4% slash under the Statutory Pay‐As‐You‐Go (PAYGO) Act (sequestration).

Cutting physician payments – especially as physicians are still recovering from a pandemic – jeopardizes Medicare patients and their physicians, says Texas Medical Association President Gary Floyd, MD.

At a minimum, TMA and other medical associations are urging Congress to pass House Resolution 8800, the Supporting Medicare Providers Act of 2022. That bill stops the impending physician Medicare payment cuts scheduled for January.

Long term, organized medicine is calling on Congress to find and pass a permanent, reliable Medicare physician payment system that:

• Keeps up with inflation and practice costs;
• Provides a baseline annual physician pay raise to keep up with inflation;
• Eliminates, replaces, or revises so-called budget neutrality requirements (which require any physician pay increase or decrease to be offsetting);
• Incentivizes value-based care; and
• Reduces health disparities.

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